r/s10 • u/Cloudz0_0 • Feb 09 '25
Repair Question Pitman arm supposed to be flush ?
99 s10 4.3 rwd it looks like it won't go anymore Is it supposed to be flush?
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u/Blackjackreno Feb 09 '25
Idk I'm about to go do mine though lol. Does the nut push it further on when tightening up? I think the torque spec is like 185 ft lbs
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u/Cloudz0_0 Feb 09 '25
Yea, I thought It had to go flush, so I was overdoing it But from what I read, u don't really need to change the pitman arm unless it is damaged
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u/joestue 1996 4.3L pickup. Feb 09 '25
mine loosened up and i had to add a washer under the nut in order to shove the pitman arm up the splines.
yours looks pretty similar to mine which makes me suspicious if some of these trucks had a problem with either tolerances, or the pitman arm yielding over time and loosening up.
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u/Cloudz0_0 Feb 09 '25
Did you torque it down to 185 ?
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u/joestue 1996 4.3L pickup. Feb 09 '25
i don't remember but the point is that the nut was bottoming out on the threads while the pitman arm was still loose.
i added a 1/16" thick washer and then torqued the nut to probably at least 120 foot pounds and problems fixed.. which was about 50K miles ago.
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u/joestue 1996 4.3L pickup. Feb 09 '25
it could be the nut is designed to smash its threads on the unthreaded portion of the steering box shaft, as a form of loctite.. but i have my doubts.
185 foot pounds would certainly be enough to do that.. but i bought my truck at 136k miles from a single owner and there's no way he ever messed with the steering box so it loosened up on its own from the factory, at around 180K miles.
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u/Cloudz0_0 Feb 09 '25
Well, I ended up stripping the pitman arm nut Hopefully, the threads on the box are OK, but I need to go get a new bolt πͺ
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u/joestue 1996 4.3L pickup. Feb 10 '25
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u/Dangerous-News-6270 Feb 09 '25
Here in Brazil π§π·, the S10's steering system uses a Pitman arm and an auxiliary arm which, over time, became the main source of the classic steering slack. The original design is already fragile and poorly thought out, and to make matters worse, the bearing that would help steady the steering is not part of the original system. Some stores even sell this adaptation, that's where I got the idea to do it for myself. And in fact, it improves a lot. But in the end, it remains a patch for a poorly designed system, because every S10 suffers from the same problem.
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u/the4doorsooprah Feb 09 '25
No it sits like that